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Scientific Writing
The Computer Science Perspective
Tom Henzinger
Scientific Presentation and Conduct
March 10
March 17
March 24
March 31
April 7
April 14
May 5
May 12
May 19
May 26
June 9
June 16
Scientific writing – computer science perspective
Scientific writing – biology perspective
Scientific publishing – biology
Scientific publishing – computer science
Literature search and library resources
Scientific conduct
Mathematical writing
Proposal writing
Scientific lecturing – biology
Scientific lecturing – computer science
Student presentations
Student presentations
Make every possible effort to improve your writing.
Papers are the longest lasting artifacts that a scientist produces.
You want your papers to be read, but you cannot expect the reader
to make an effort that you, as the writer, are not willing to make.
Part A:
Principles of composition
Part B:
How to organize a paper
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
1. Choose a suitable design and hold to it.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
1. Choose a suitable design and hold to it.
Planning must be a deliberate prelude to writing.
Start from a skeleton:
definitions, theorems, results, examples, etc.
Then fill in the text.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
2. Make the paragraph the unit of composition.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
2. Make the paragraph the unit of composition.
Begin each paragraph with a sentence that suggests the topic
of the paragraph.
Deliberately choose the order of sentences within a paragraph,
and the order of paragraphs within a section.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
3. Write with nouns and verbs,
not with adjectives and adverbs.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
3. Write with nouns and verbs,
not with adjectives and adverbs.
Select your nouns and verbs carefully.
No spicy adjective can save a bland noun.
Use a thesaurus.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
4. Omit needless words.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
4. Omit needless words.
A sentence should contain no unnecessary words,
a paragraph no unnecessary sentences,
a section no unnecessary paragraphs.
the fact that I had arrived
my arrival
Avoid the use of qualifiers.
We should all try to do a little better, we should all be very
watchful of this rule, for it is a rather important one and we
are quite sure to violate it now and then.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
5. Use definite, specific, concrete language.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
5. Use definite, specific, concrete language.
Prefer the specific to the general,
the definite to the vague,
the concrete to the abstract.
Commit, don’t hesitate.
A period of unfavorable
weather set in.
It rained every day
for a week.
This is perhaps the most important rule to keep the attention
of the reader.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
6. Use the active voice.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
6. Use the active voice.
Active voice is more direct, more vigorous, and more concise.
There were a great number of
dead leaves lying on the ground.
The ground was covered
by dead leaves.
Dead leaves
covered the ground.
In scientific writing use “we” to mean “the writer(s) and the
reader together.”
Put statements in positive form.
He was not very often on time.
He usually came late.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
7. Be clear.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
7. Be clear.
When you become hopelessly mired in a sentence, start fresh.
Usually what is wrong is that the construction has become too
involved and the sentence needs to be broken apart.
Never take shortcuts at the cost of clarity.
Never use undefined abbreviations.
Avoid ambiguous pronouns (this, it).
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
8. Keep related words together.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
8. Keep related words together.
The relative pronoun should come immediately after its
antecedent.
Modifiers should come next to the word they modify.
There was a stir in the audience
that suggested disapproval.
A stir that suggested disapproval
swept the audience.
He only found two mistakes.
He found only two mistakes.
Relative pronouns: “that” is restrictive, “which” is not.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
9. Introduce names for clarity and emphasis.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
9. Introduce names for clarity and emphasis.
Everything - conditions, ideas, relationships - can be named.
Referring to a concept by name increases precision
(and saves space).
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
10. Be consistent with designators.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
10. Be consistent with designators.
Always use the same word(s) to refer to the same thing.
Variation confuses the reader.
Express parallel ideas in similar form.
The likeness of form helps the reader to recognize the
likeness of content and function.
Formerly, science was taught by the
textbook method, while now the
laboratory method is employed.
Formerly, science was taught by the
textbook method; now it is taught by
the laboratory method.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
11. Keep to one use of tenses.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
11. Keep to one use of tenses.
Avoid forward references.
Previews and summaries are useful only if they are more
than lists or repetitions.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
12. Place yourself in the background.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
12. Place yourself in the background.
Draw the reader’s attention to the substance of the writing,
rather than to the temper of the writer.
Clearly separate fact from opinion.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
13. Do not overwrite.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
13. Do not overwrite.
Prefer the standard to the offbeat, the simple to the pretentious.
Ornate language is hard to digest and nauseating.
Avoid fancy words and cliches.
Use foreign languages and figures of speech sparingly.
Do not be tempted by the cute.
Use italics and exclamation marks infrequently and judiciously.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
14. Do not overstate.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
14. Do not overstate.
When you overstate, the reader will be instantly on guard,
and everything that has preceded your overstatement as
well as everything that follows it will be suspect in his mind.
A single carefree superlative has the power to destroy, for
the reader, the object of the writer’s enthusiasm.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
15. Some common errors of English usage:
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
15. Some common errors of English usage:
In a series of three or more terms , use a comma after each term
except the last.
Enclose parenthetic expressions between commas or dashes.
Join independent clauses by semicolons.
Put periods and commas inside quotation marks even if they are
not part of the quote.
Hyphenate words that combine to form a compound adjective.
Spell out numbers up to ten, except in dates and serial numbers.
Never start a sentence with a digit or symbol.
Avoid colloquialisms (don’t).
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
16. Revise and rewrite, again and again.
Strunk and White: The Elements of Style
Elementary Principles of Composition
16. Revise and rewrite, again and again.
A pencil is the most useful tool for shortening.
For rearranging a text, scissors should be brought into play.
Do not be afraid to throw away what you have written.
Homework 1:
Choose a text you have written, between 500 and 1000 words.
Go through it paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence,
word by word, and apply all 16 principles of composition.
What is the percentage of words saved?
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
Wrong: We write papers to impress others, gain recognition,
and get promoted.
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
Wrong: We write papers to impress others, gain recognition,
and get promoted.
Right: We write papers to communicate ideas and report
findings.
The goal is to infect the mind of the reader with your idea,
like a virus.
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
Wrong: Idea  Do research  Write paper
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
Wrong: Idea  Do research  Write paper
Right: Idea  Write paper  Do research
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
Wrong: Idea  Do research  Write paper
Right: Idea  Write paper  Do research
Focuses the research.
Opens the dialogue with others
(critique and collaboration).
Writing the paper is how you develop the
idea in the first place.
It usually turns out to be more interesting and
challenging than it seemed at first.
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
How To Convey Your Idea
1. Here is the problem.
2. It’s an interesting problem.
3. It’s an unsolved problem.
4. Here is my idea.
5. My idea works (details, data).
6. My idea differs from other people’s ideas.
7. This is what follows from my idea.
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
The Introduction
1. Introduce the problem with a carefully chosen example.
2. State your contributions.
3. Nothing else.
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
The Introduction
1. Introduce the problem with a carefully chosen example.
2. State your contributions.
3. Nothing else.
Draft the introduction first, rewrite it last:
The list of contributions drives the paper;
the paper substantiates the claims made in the introduction.
The reader should think “Gosh, if they can really deliver this,
that would be exciting – I better read on.”
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
Introduction Part 1: The Example
Your primary goal is to convey the intuition:
Explain the problem as if you were using a whiteboard;
once the reader has the intuition, she can follow the details
(but not vice versa).
Even if the reader skips the details, she still takes away
something valuable.
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
Introduction Part 2: The Contributions
Don’t leave the reader to guess what your contributions are.
Some reviewers will guess wrong.
Don’t have too many contributions.
Some reviewers will focus on the weakest contribution.
Contributions must be specific and refutable.
We describe the WizWoz
system and study its
properties. It is really cool.
We give a type system for a language
that supports concurrent processes. We
prove that type checking is decidable.
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
The Details
The introduction makes claims;
the body of the paper provides evidence to support each claim.
Evidence can be theorems or measurements.
Theorems need proof; measurements need to be repeatable.
Supporting evidence (proofs, data) can be supplied in
appendices or on the web.
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
The Appearance
Give strong visual structure to your paper
(subsections, bullet lists, figures).
Give meaningful names to (sub)sections, paragraphs, theorems,
examples, figures, etc.
Some readers will skip everything else.
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
Comparison with Related Work
1. Be specific (make sure your comparison is accurate).
2. Be honest (acknowledge weaknesses of your approach).
3. Give credit (be generous to the competition).
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
Comparison with Related Work
1. Be specific (make sure your comparison is accurate).
2. Be honest (acknowledge weaknesses of your approach).
3. Give credit (be generous to the competition).
Wrong: To make your work look good, you have to make other
people’s work look bad.
Right: Giving credit to others does not diminish the credit you get
for your work.
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
The Bibliography
References are parenthetical;
they are not part of the sentence.
Give a reference where an intellectual debt is due.
Don’t give a reference for any other reason.
Be consistent in style!
The quickest check of how much care has gone into a paper is
to take a look at the bibliography.
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
The Conclusion
Don’t just summarize – add something new.
This is the place to bring in some opinion:
identify the key insight(s), evaluate/judge the results, consider
the ramifications/applications, speculate about the next steps.
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
The Abstract
Be brief, precise, and factual:
Sentence 1: the problem.
Sentence 2: the solution.
Sentence 3: the consequences.
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
The Abstract
Be brief, precise, and factual:
Sentence 1: the problem.
Sentence 2: the solution.
Sentence 3: the consequences.
Write the abstract last and choose each word carefully.
The fewer words you have to describe something, the more
difficult it is.
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
Getting Help
Start early – hastily written papers get rejected.
Good papers are like wine: they need time to mature.
Get your paper read by as many friendly guinea pigs as possible:
Experts are good; non-experts are also good.
If a reader does not understand something, the blame is always
on the writer.
Each reader can only read your paper for the first time one – so
use them judiciously!
Warmly acknowledge all help you got.
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
Drawing the Competition to Your Side
When you think you are done, send a draft to competitors saying
“Could you please help me ensure that I describe your work fairly?”
Often they will respond with feedback.
Be grateful for criticism as well as praise and be prepared to listen –
even if it is (really) hard!
They are likely to be your referees anyway, so getting their
comments up front is an unbelievable deal.
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
If you remember nothing else …
1.
2.
3.
4.
Identify your key idea.
State your contributions explicitly.
Use examples to give intuition.
Write in simple, direct language.
Peyton-Jones: How to write a great research paper
If you remember nothing else …
1.
2.
3.
4.
Identify your key idea.
State your contributions explicitly.
Use examples to give intuition.
Write in simple, direct language.
And above all,
try to have fun writing!
(It will show.)